Define Human
by DarkHorseBlueSky
Summary: He doesn't want to be seen and she's got only a dead phone, which is why they're sitting in a bike store-turned-church for gangsters and talking about how badly they've both screwed up. [T for violence, mental trauma, and just general awkwardness. BuckyxOC only if you squint. threeshot. maybe.]
1. human — not perfect

***casually ignores the fact that she hasn't updated DFW in weeks and the looming threat of finals***

**oh well TIME FOR NEW STORY WHICH WILL UNDOUBTEDLY HAVE EXCRUCIATINGLY SLOW UPDATES**

**AS USUAL LOL**

* * *

He had no idea where he was or who he was anymore, but there was no turning back now.

Words — images — colors swirled around him and across his mind's eye, nearly blinding him with their speed and intensity. They flew too fast. He couldn't catch them quite. It was like he was being spun, around and around and around, while being blinded with a bright light from above. He couldn't reach out to anything except air, though he could see blurs of shadows standing just barely inside the light.

On the outside, he knew, he was just another young man on the dark city street, walking a bit too fast to be perceived as casual. But he couldn't slow down when, inside, he was screaming and running after memories that only showed themselves enough to grin deviously before flitting away.

Tears were streaking down his cheeks and he became aware that now he wasn't anywhere close to walking anymore. He was running. Running and sobbing and screaming down claustrophobic mazelike alleys that most sensible people would have avoided at all costs.

Ha. Sensible.

He wasn't sensible.

He wasn't even sure if he was a person anymore.

The Winter Soldier kept running.

* * *

"Reagan?"

Hesitantly, she lifted her head and met the kind grey eyes of Pastor David. A former gang member and drug addict in his younger days, the now middle-aged man still sported several nasty scars and a smoke-scratchy voice testifying to his not-so-righteous past. Evidence of salvation, he called them. Evidence that even the worst of us could, by the grace of God, bring ourselves to our knees in order to serve the King.

Reagan had thought she was alone in the cramped bike store-turned-church where she came nearly every Sunday and weekdays when her neighbors didn't want to hear her awful music or when she just needed some time alone, but apparently she'd been wrong. She bit her lip and blinked to clear her eyes, even though it was obvious she'd been crying.

"I'm fine," she lied, even though she knew that she probably shouldn't have lied to a pastor.

He saw right through it anyway. Exhaling, he sat down on the chair next to her (real church pews were outside of their budget and wouldn't have fit in the room, so they had folding chairs) and looked her in the eye.

"I'm so sure," he said.

He didn't even have to ask.

The weight was so heavy for Reagan that she let it drop to the ground with a thousand-ton _thump._

Her pastor didn't speak the entire time, just listened and made the occasional small nod. She was crying when she was done, but it felt good to let the stupid secret go and even better when he asked if she wanted to pray about it. Pastor David didn't tell her to do anything, didn't even put her down for the choices she'd made or the choices she might have to make, only told her the upsides and downsides and what he might be able to do to help. When she left she was still burdened with worry, but it was significantly less than before.

As she pushed open the door and let the cool night air wash over her tear-stained face, she touched her stomach and gave her first smile in three days.

It was weak, it was sad, and it broke soon after, but it was still a smile.

.

She'd parked her car in back of the building, mostly out of habit because no one wanted to walk up to church and see _her _car. It was a nasty old thing from the early nineties that desperately needed a new coat of paint and replacement everything, but it was better to have this car than no car and besides, no one would want to steal _this _piece of junk. Not even the shady characters who hung out in alleys like this.

She glanced around as she circled around towards her car, instinctually scanning the area for said "shady characters". Growing up in cities did that to you, and anyways it never hurt to be safe. Satisfied that she saw no people stalking towards her with weapons in their hands, she turned to her car and reached for her keys…

…just in time for only her peripheral vision to see the flash of movement turning a corner and _coming right towards her._

It happened almost like slow motion. Reagan literally felt her heart skip a beat as she whirled around, muscles automatically tensed and fists clenched. In the back of her mind she knew that her first line of defense should have been the Taser in her purse, but on the spur of the moment you could never think straight unless you were formally trained for it, and of all things Reagan could not be classified as formally trained for anything.

Especially not freaky guys charging you at speeds that shouldn't have been possible for a human.

Suddenly, as Reagan braced herself for a fight in the split second it took for her eyes to lock on the man and the man's eyes to lock on Reagan, he seemed to trip at the mere sight of her and tumbled across the ground, crashing into a Dumpster. As much as Reagan saw of it — which wasn't much — his head knocked into the side, he fell limp on the ground, and…nothing.

_He wasn't moving._

Her heart skipped another beat as a single thought raced through her mind — _Did I just kill a man? _Before she knew it, her legs were carrying her forward and towards the stranger in black, ignoring whatever panic signals her mind was sending out. Her instincts told her that this man was big trouble, but conscience told her that he could be_ in_ big trouble.

She saw that he was curled up in the fetal position when she reached him, his face hidden from her by a mass of wet dark hair. He was dressed strangely, almost like an army commando or something, and one arm — the one he'd landed on — was covered completely in some kind of reflective metal. No, scratch that — it wasn't covered in metal. No, it couldn't be. Not when an outside piece had broken and twisted away, revealing the mass of wires and rods where flesh and muscles and bone should have been.

Who_ was _this guy?

Slowly, cautiously, and shaking like a leaf, she knelt. Her reasoning was that she'd never find out if she didn't ask, and she couldn't ask unless he was alive. Also, she really didn't want the guilt of knowing she'd taken a life out of the world. With one hand curled around her Taser, she asked, "Uh…mister, are you okay?"

No response. Reagan's pace began to quicken and, desperate more than anything, she decided to take the plunge. She reached forward and with the Taser-less hand touched the man's shoulder.

"Really, are you — "

She was never to finish. There was a flurry of movement, pinwheeling arms and the reflection of dim electric light on gunmetal. Strange, rough hands gripped her arms. Her feet left the ground, not out of their own volition, and a second later her body slammed down, back first, onto hard, unforgiving asphalt. The wind was knocked completely out of her and for minutes that felt like hours, she tried to remember how to breathe.

"God…" she gasped, sure her time was up, "_help me!"_

Her stomach was turning like never before and she swore that if the man took even a single step towards her, she was going to throw up all over him. She'd thrown up a lot over the past few days and so she was pretty sure her aim was good enough, too. But as minutes passed and she regained her breath, she saw nothing above her except the looming buildings and red city sky. No dark silhouette, ready to kill her or rob her or worse. Not that she'd wanted one. But still…she was confused. Who was the man? Where was he now?

Her chest was still heaving as she rolled onto her side and pushed herself up into a rough sitting position, but then all of a sudden as she lifted her head her breath hitched in her throat. The stranger had pushed himself into the shadowy corner made by the Dumpster and the brick wall behind it, and was now crouched with hands (metal and otherwise) thrust in front of him and aiming a gun _right at her._

Reagan froze in place. She'd grown up with a lot of things and among them, guns were prominent. She couldn't say she was familiar with them — naming the brand and type at a glance were her brother's job — but she'd seen enough of them to know she was sick of them. Being at the business end of a firearm wasn't new for her, and yet every time it happened and every time she stared into that deadly, pitch black eye and then glanced up at the two maniacal ones of the holder…she still felt the same clench at her gut.

Then she realized that something was different here. The stranger didn't want something from her.

He was _afraid._

Could it be anything but that? No, no, she was right! He was trembling, oh God — and looking at him she realized that he couldn't be much older than she. Most gang members and illdoers weren't either, but that wasn't the point…he was dressed in military gear, had a metal arm, and couldn't be much past twenty-five.

Who _was _he?

She scanned him over one more time. _Cornered _was the first word she could come up with to describe him, the second being _hot _and surprising her more than even the first. Yup, definitely hot. Not in the way that applied to most of her boyfriends — with spiky gelled hair and a (usually) fake bad-boy kind of casualness that they used simply to get close to girls — but rather more of a _natural _ruggedness that reflected years of blood and ridiculous amounts of both skills and luck. It both frightened and appealed to her in the most twisted, guilty way — especially with her being…well, as she was.

Then she realized that even as she was scanning over him, he was doing the same to her. She momentarily wished that she'd had time to put on makeup, but with all the crying she'd been doing lately, it was probably for the best that she didn't anyway. But she let him look over her anyway, she and her badly dyed dirty blond (originally brown) braided hair and dirty skinny jeans and nibbled fingernails, because of course he had a gun and so she'd let him do as he wished.

The silence was deafening and she felt the judgment in the stranger's piercing, penetrating gaze. Just then he looked up and their eyes locked, pale green-blue on brown, the space between them ice. He didn't lower his gun.

So she did the obedient thing. Slowly so as not to startle him and/or cause him to shoot her, Reagan set her Taser on the ground, tossed her (nearly empty) purse to the side, and put her hands over her head.

His narrowed eyes widened and, still painfully cautious, he lowered the weapon. Relief washed over Reagan and she dropped her hands to her side, but just as she did the gun shot up and the aim was again on her.

The message was clear. She raised her hands.

This time, the strange man didn't lower the gun. He rose to his feet, still with that wary, _hunted _set to his shoulders and stance, and stepped silently out of the shadows. He glanced around furtively, his eyes seeming to take in the entire alley with a single glance before finally landing on her again. Reagan didn't want to get shot and so she didn't move, but it seemed as if the man didn't _want_ to shoot her and so he didn't move either.

Well, they had to do _something. _Her arms were starting to get sore.

She inhaled, finding much to her dismay that it was difficult to breathe without trembling. "I…" she tried. Even her voice was shaky. She forged ahead. "Nice to meet you too, sir."

This was obviously not what he was expecting. He'd gone stiff at the sound of her voice and his grip had tightened on that gun of his, but suddenly he relaxed (still tense, but a lot more relaxed than before) and lowered it an inch.

"What did you say?" he asked. His voice was low and scratchy, like he didn't normally talk much and had just exhausted his throat's capabilities. She decided that it might be a nice voice, with practice.

"I said," she swallowed over the lump in her throat, "it's nice to meet you, sir." Her lips were dry and she ran her tongue over them before continuing. "You're okay, right?"

He stared at her as if she had just killed his best friend in front of his very eyes. "I…don't know," he forced between breaths.

Suddenly his fingers went slack and the gun fell to the ground with a clatter. His hands flew up to his head, he seemed to stumble over nothing, and he dropped to his knees.

"I — I should be dead," he snarled. _"I shouldn't exist — !"_

All right, maybe he wasn't okay. Alarmed, Reagan scrambled back and instinctively reached to her hip for her phone, maybe to call the cops or a psychiatrist, only to find that her purse wasn't there. She'd thrown it away and it was there, five or six feet away. The man was three feet from her…if she moved fast, she could get there before him.

But what if she couldn't fight him off her…?

Whatever. She was screwed either way.

Listening to impulse before reason, she got up and bolted for her purse. It reminded her of one of those nightmares where you want to run to or from something, but your legs feel like they're moving through molasses and you know that at this speed you'll never make it. She knew, a split second after she started, that she'd never reach her destination.

Something heavy and dark slammed into her body and she went flying again.

She hit the ground in an explosion of pain and fear and, both blinded and fueled by terror, she lashed out with all she had. Her sneakered foot grazed something that felt like a leg and her fist connected with a nice solid something that she thought was his cheek (which she kind of regretted — he had _really_ hard cheekbones) but it was like fighting an avalanche. Kick and scream and punch though she did, he would still win, and they both knew it.

When he pinned her wrists to the ground and pressed the gun to her head, she didn't fight anymore. It was over, that much was certain — for some reason, this guy didn't want anyone to know where or who he was or even that he existed, and would kill to keep it that way. And he was probably insane too.

So she opened her eyes and dared to meet the maniacal gaze of her attacker, content in the knowledge that she had nothing left to live for and from the sermons she'd heard it was better on the other side anyway…and so she looked up instead of away.

"Well," she spat, blood dribbling from her mouth, "what are you waiting for?"

More emotions crossed his face than he seemed to know how to deal with, and as they stared at each other Reagan began to realize that the prominent one in the mix was _fear. _Fear of what? Of her? Of being hurt? Of doing what he was about to do? Or…

She realized that he wasn't looking at just her face anymore, but rather his eyes drifted all around her, taking in with horror…what? She wasn't _that _out of shape, was she? Careful not to jostle the gun pressing into her skull, she turned her head and looked down at herself.

_Oh._

Blood stained her thin blue hoodie, borne of a four-inch gash stretching from her right clavicle down to her bicep. She had no idea how _that _had gotten there, except for maybe the theory that a part of her attacker's battered metal arm had ripped open her skin when he'd tackled her. But that wasn't important. What was important was the fact that for some reason, Reagan couldn't feel anything except the warmth of the blood and the stings where she'd skinned her knees in one of the falls and somehow scraped her chin. She kept staring at the wound on her shoulder, waiting for the excruciating pain to kick in. It didn't come.

"Should I be worried that I feel nothing but mild annoyance?" she asked the metal-armed stranger.

She felt a faint glowing pride inside her that she'd regained her sense of humor, but her attacker didn't seem half as amused. First he gaped at her, then he began to shake his head, whispering incoherent things under his breath (many of which sounded like "no" and "monster"). His hands, even the metal one, trembled.

He dropped the gun again. Reagan winced as the cold barrel grazed her ear, but at least he'd dropped it and not fired it. That was all she could think of until, a split second later, she realized that he wasn't holding her down anymore. Confused, she forced herself up with her good arm to see where he'd gone this time. He was a good pace away, once again on his knees.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, over and over. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm a murderer — traitor_ — monster —_ I'm s-sorry, Steve, I — I _— I can't remember anything —_ "

Reagan felt another lump rise in her throat. She had no idea who this man was or what he wanted or what he'd been running from. To be completely honest, he freaked her out. Cornered like an animal, and now crying like a little boy who just wanted to go home again. She didn't know why and she wasn't sure if she wanted to know; but all she knew was that he was in the same place she'd been years ago, and he needed help.

They _both _needed help, she amended as she felt another drop of blood trickle down her arm. She knew where to find it; she just didn't know if he'd agree.

Oh well. Can't know 'til you try.

She struggled to her feet, took off her hoodie and clamped it over the somehow painless wound in a futile effort to staunch the blood flow. The stranger caught the movement and looked up, dirty cheeks streaked with tears. He tensed up and she froze.

"I'm not going to hurt you."

It didn't seem like the right thing to say, especially with her being the wounded one and him being the (homicidal) maniac instead of the other way around. But it was out already, and all that was left now was to see if it worked. She didn't even know _who _was supposed to be saying it, or if it could be trusted.

Hesitantly, he nodded. His brow furrowed as a thought obviously occurred to him and he asked in a quiet, almost _childlike _voice:

"Am I going to hurt you?"

Such proving her point. She hesitated, unsure of how to reply.

"I'm…I sure hope not," she forced a dry little laugh, then tried to smile. "Come on, let's get inside. I know someone who can help us."

When she offered her good hand to him so she could help him up, he didn't move. She sighed.

"Look," she said, trying to be patient with him, "I am obviously hurt. You are obviously very confused. We both need help and rest. If you're worried about people knowing who you are, that's fine — I won't stick my head in it, and I know he won't either. So unless you really want to run around all night, unsure of anything except the fact that you're unsure of everything — "

"No," he deadpanned.

The first sensible statement that left his lips had to be a "no". It was a good kind of no, though, and Reagan felt proud of herself for making even this creep give in. Yeah, she might make a good mom after all.

"I thought so," she smirked, and bent down to grab her purse. She noticed him stiffen up again, and exasperated she rolled her eyes. "It's just my purse, don't worry."

"Why?"

The question was spoken with such innocent frankness that it caught her off guard. She peered into his wide, pale eyes as she tried to find even the barest trace of guile in them. Had this guy really been _that _secluded from society and sanity that he didn't even know what a purse was or why girls carried them? Truth to be told, Reagan wasn't exactly sure why herself (other than the answer of "for carrying money, phones, makeup, and the unspeakables" but she didn't want to say that, because she didn't have any of the last in her purse and odds were he had no idea what she was talking about and would ask before holding her at gunpoint and demanding to know what the unspeakables were and why she had none. And Reagan really wasn't in the mood for explaining either). So she decided to play it safe.

"I don't know," she answered, aware that she sounded defensive but unable to do anything about it. "I'm a girl. Girls don't have as big of pockets as guys. So girls carry purses to hold anything that we need. That's just what we do."

She shrugged and reached down again, but she hadn't been careful. Reagan was a dominant righty and had subconsciously reached out her right arm to pick up her purse…meaning that she stretched her shoulder and, hence, the wound. She knew it had been stupid even before it started to hurt.

Ah. There was the excruciating pain they'd all been waiting for.

Her lips let out an involuntary cry and the world around her dissolved into nothing but blurs of red and black and, of course, the excruciating pain. Because really, what was a fight wound without excruciating pain? She'd figured her nerve endings had been severed or at the very least she was just in shock, but either way she knew things were going to catch up on her.

She fell and landed semi-upright, for some strange reason not on the ground but instead in someone's arms. She couldn't quite grasp what that meant and so she decided to open her eyes and say the first thing that came to mind instead:

"I'd had a bad feeling that would hurt like hell later…"

The man, apparently not completely grasping what she meant, just nodded, helped her stand on her own two feet, and handed her the purse. He was being careful with both his metal arm _and _her wounded one, she noticed, maybe because he didn't want to hurt her more than she already was? That was really sweet, even though he still gave her the creeps.

"So," she coughed, wiggling her eyebrows and smirking (in her experience, the stoic soldier-types could usually be broken by a bit of joking around, which she excelled at). "If you're done here, shall we go in? There's a first-aid kit in the office and Pastor David's actually getting used to people coming in with weird wounds…"

He nodded, again without comment. It really was kind of heartbreaking how much he reminded her of just a small, shy child. Closed body language, insecure fidgeting (mostly with the stupid metal arm again — she wondered what happened to the real one), poor eye contact, head lowered and subtle attempts to hide behind his hair. That had been her once, she and her brother and even Mom when she was a girl. She understood. But you couldn't survive in the wild world as a small, shy child — you had to bring out the soldier inside and fight.

Even if you'd lost everything you had left to fight for.

She realized she'd been staring and he was now staring back, and she shook her head. "Sorry," she said shortly. "Come on, follow me."

She set back off in the direction of her church, expecting to hear his footsteps as he followed her. After five paces, she stopped. Nothing. She sighed, realizing that he was probably not in the mood to follow her anywhere and was most likely still standing where she'd left him — she turned —

He was right next to her.

"Oh my go — " She stopped herself just in time, remembering what Pastor David had told her about taking the Lord's name in vain. Best not to make a practice of it even outside of church, lest you slip up and start swearing _in_ church. And, trust me, with _that _kind of congregation (gypsies, bikers, and hobos, oh my), swearing in the Lord's name was something that desperately needed work to stop. Sometimes, believe it or not, even for the pastor.

But old habits die hard, and Reagan had been _really _scared. He'd just been _standing right next to her, _as if he'd been following her the entire time and she somehow hadn't heard or seen him at all.

She did her best to scowl, but it was hard when your heart was pounding.

"Please don't do that," she told him. "Scared the — living daylights out of me, you…"

* * *

She laughed lightly, shook her head and kept walking, and something sparked.

He was still confused as hell, guiltier than he thought she knew, and didn't even know if he was human or just a broken machine, but though unaware of it his light had just flared.

As she strode off, holding her rolled-up sweatshirt over wounded shoulder, he followed silently and gave his first smile in seventy years.

It was weak, it was sad, and it broke soon after, but it was still a smile.

* * *

**#what is the definition of chapter ending**

**#BLAH**

**#okay bye for now**


	2. we fall, we fail, we falter

**A/N: I have no idea where this story is going.**

**...**

***prances off on back of unicorn pooping rainbows***

**OH WELL**

* * *

The back door was locked and Reagan didn't have a key to that one, so she led her strange metal-armed companion around to the front and entered in from there. When Pastor David had bought the place from the failed bike store, he'd used part of the small budget to build a wall between the front door and the main worship hall (some people called it a "sanctuary" but no matter how hard he tried or how long he worked on it, Pastor David just could never pronounce "sanctuary" right and no one knew why) so there was a kind of reception area where they had a bulletin board, flyers, stacks of Bibles, everything. Usually, before services, a huge ex-MMA man who went by the name of Joe both greeted people as they entered and checked suspicious-looking newcomers for explosives, drugs, or firearms.

But Joe wasn't here to give Metal Arm Guy a pat-down, and so Reagan had to take it on faith that he wasn't going to pull out a bomb on her or Pastor David. She glanced over at him, trying not to turn her neck because pretty much every movement hurt now. He was looking around the unlit reception room with wide, curious eyes, but still saying nothing.

"Welcome to church," she said to him before leading him into the worship hall where she'd sat not fifteen minutes before, crying and praying.

"Pastor David!" she called as they burst into the empty, dimly lit room. Only two lights were on, a light in the front and a light in the back room that served as the pastor's office. The door was open just a bit, so Reagan couldn't see inside, but she was sure he was here. She'd just talked to him fifteen minutes ago; of course he was here. She didn't really know why he had been at church on a Friday night in the first place (she knew why _she _had been there; church was really the only place she could be alone) but it would make sense that he'd stay a while after talking with her, right?

"Probably just got his earbuds in again," she explained to Metal Arm Guy (whose name she still didn't know) when seconds passed and there was no reply from anyone. One unique thing about Pastor David was that he loved classical music. Not heavy metal, not alternative, not jazz, nothing you might think from a former cocaine addict/prison veteran — just classical. He loved the majestic, soaring violins, the haunting piano chords, and the singing flutes much more than any guitar-shredding growls. So as a kind of "thank you" to their pastor, last year the entire congregation had scraped together enough to buy him a good iPod and an album entitled "The 100 Most Essential Pieces of Classical Music" for his fiftieth birthday. He listened to it pretty much whenever he didn't have to concentrate or speak to people.

Ignoring the pain of her stupid wound and the rolling fatigue that just now washed over her like a wave, she left her creepy follower standing at the far end of the aisle and jogged/limped up to the pastor's office. "PASTOR DAVID!" she yelled, familiar with how loud he liked to turn up the music and exactly how many decibels you needed to use to surpass it, but there was still no reply. She finally completed the seemingly endless journey to the door and, more fatigued than ever, threw her entire body weight at the door to push it open. "Pastor, I — "

She tapered off when she saw the empty chair.

Her mouth dropped open and she scanned the room again, unwilling to believe her eyes. Maybe he'd just gone to the bathroom or something. But no, no…his Bible, computer bag, and iPod — the three things he never, ever left anywhere without — were nowhere to be seen on the cluttered desk.

Pastor David was gone, and Reagan was alone with a creepy one-armed murderer.

Great.

XXXXXXXXX

"He's not here," Reagan groaned to Metal Arm Guy when he spontaneously appeared in the doorway (completely silently as usual, which was actually growing on her and she now thought cooler than it was creepy — though it was still creepy).

"I swear, he was _just talking to me fifteen minutes ago!" _Giving into frustrated impulses, she threw her hands in the air as she'd made a habit of doing whenever frustrated. She instantly regretted it when the pain shot down her arm and up her body.

_Why do I keep doing that? _was the only thought that flitted through her mind as she gritted her teeth and tried to keep from falling down again. She balanced herself against the desk with her good hand, but that didn't do much and she became aware that her body was swaying backwards — either that or the room was swaying forwards; she couldn't really tell. Shis time she was lucky enough to collapse in her pastor's ratty blue swivel chair instead of her attacker's/ally's/companion's/whatever-she-was-calling-him-now/_his _arms, because (1) he made her uncomfortable and (2) whoever had made that metal arm of his hadn't built it for catching falling girls. Maybe for killing them. But not for catching them.

"Get me my phone," she groaned, pressing her hoodie over the wound. It burned like the blazes to touch it, but the blood was really flowing now and she didn't have much else to staunch it with. _"Now!_"

He was clearly frazzled enough without her yelling at him, but he obeyed and scrambled in her purse for her phone. She snatched it from him and, hand shaking, turned it on and unlocked it one-handed.

Only to have it turn off again.

She felt her heart drop into her stomach. _"What?!"_

This really couldn't be happening. First her soul-lifting talk with her pastor is undermined by the sudden appearance of a creep with a metal arm, then said creep attacks her and confirms her doubts about his sanity, then the pastor's not there to calm them both down, then her freaking phone dies before she can call the hospital? Just great. Next she'd die of blood loss.

"You've got to be _kidding me!" _she yelled at the ceiling, slamming her phone down on the desk. As she whipped her head around, she prayed that there'd be at least a wall phone, but of course she knew that there was none. There used to be back in the olden days, she'd heard, but it was a lot more money-efficient to cut the landlines and just use cell phones. And of course, if Pastor David had left, he would have taken his phone with him.

Tears prickled in Reagan's eyes and she blinked viciously to clear them, but it was no use. _Of course _she'd break down now. She was angry, alone, confused, and in a whole crapload of pain.

_So is he, _said a voice unbidden in her head, _but you're not seeing him break down, are you?_

Reagan didn't need a detective to figure out who _"he" _was. She looked up and instantly locked eyes with him. He'd again appeared at her side, standing straight as a soldier and almost as still — except that his hands trembled and he was fidgeting with them to hide it. Gazing deeper into those pale eyes she saw not stone, but rather shattered glass. He was as scared as she was, if not more.

She didn't get to look any closer because almost as soon as she caught the shattered eyes he pulled them away.

"I'm sorry," left his lips, and he reached up uncomfortably to rub his human arm. Reagan had seen a lot of weird stuff in the past few years — heck, three huge helicarry-things whatever-they-were of the government had just exploded this morning and sent debris everywhere. She hadn't really cared; she'd been a bit too busy throwing up in her bathroom sink and wasting time on work she knew she might never get done.

Yeah, she'd seen a lot of weird stuff, but she had to clock down _this guy and him actually acting human _as the weirdest.

So she decided to respond like he was human.

"I'm fine," she told him. "Just in a crapload of pain, that's all." He didn't seem to know how to deal with this. She sighed as she realized she would have to explain. "Sarcasm, hello?"

He was deadpan again as he nodded. He looked away and she rolled her eyes.

That was it. Who cared if he was a freaking amnesiac. "Do you have to be told everything?" she snapped. "You know, any other sensible guy out there would have jumped to look for the freaking first aid thing, but — what? _Nothing — "_

She stopped and flinched when he whirled on her, eyes blazing. "I don't think you know what kind of hell I'm going through right now, girl."

Crap. Reagan's heart was pounding in her chest and she shrank back into the chair, praying desperately that he wouldn't kill her. Yup, uncomfortable like a human; angry like a human; definitely a human. She'd lived in the cesspools of humanity for the majority of her short life; she usually knew how to deal with the humans within. But today…

This time, it was Reagan who looked away. "I…" she trailed away and abruptly stood up, wincing as she unsettled the shoulder. She could feel her cheeks flushing, deep dark red. "I'm sorry, I just haven't been myself lately. I'll…patch myself up, you just sit down and…we'll find some way to fix all this."

Gritting her teeth against the pain, she bent over and yanked open the metal drawer where she knew she'd find the first aid kit. It was there, thank God, and relatively untouched. She wasn't sure if there were enough bandages to wrap up her wound and staunch the bleeding long enough to drive herself to the hospital, or even if she could figure out how to wrap it, but she had to try.

"You can't just wrap it."

Reagan froze at the now-familiar voice. She knew that if she turned around, she'd probably find _him _standing right behind her again. But she didn't, because she knew better than to move anything quickly.

"What do you mean?" she said, her tongue dry.

"The wound," he replied shortly. "A cut like that needs stitches."

She was hoping he wasn't going to say that. She'd given herself stitches before a few times when she'd been desperate and knew how to do it, except that they'd all been in places where she could reach and all capable of being fixed with her dominant hand. "So…what? Are _you _going to put them in, or do you expect me to hop in my car and drive to the freaking hospital on my own? Or are you going to be nice and drive it for me?"

She hadn't thought so and she was right. They were both aware that the following silence meant _option number one, though I'm still not happy about it._

And sure enough, when she glanced back down into the first aid kit, Reagan saw a small tube of numbing-cream, a sterilized needle, and medical thread.

Now Pastor Dave was gone _and _she was alone with a creepy/insane one-armed murderer who was going to have to stick a sharp thing in her skin.

Even better.

XXXXXXXXX

"Look." She dipped her fingers in the numbing cream and tentatively dabbed some on the wound, wincing. The numbness began to settle in immediately, and so she got a bigger glob of it and began to slather it all over her skin. She'd had to take off her shirt to access the cut and had found, to her embarrassment, that the thing that had made the wound had also severed her bra strap. So now she had two things to worry about — that the still-unnamed stranger would mess up her shoulder even more than it already was, and that her bra would slip.

Yup, just her luck.

She glanced from her shoulder to him. He sat cross-legged on the floor, fidgeting hands in his lap. He was watching her intently, eyes wide and unblinking. In a frozen, awkward moment, he caught her gaze and they were locked, neither capable of movement. Then she shook her head and turned back to applying more numbing cream. She couldn't feel her shoulder at all anymore, which was probably a good thing.

"Look," she repeated, trying to remember what it was she'd wanted to say to him. Oh, yeah. "We're both here, not because we need something of each other to solve our separate problems, but because we're pretty much screwed if we don't work to figure them out together. You need my help because I know a guy who will give you food, shelter, time to recover, whatever you need, and who will help you sort things out without saying a word to anyone else."

"Pastor David," he said quietly, and Reagan nodded.

"Yup, him. Now, with that in mind, I'll just say I need your help because I have no way to call someone about this whopping wound, you don't want to show your face to anyone and hence won't drive me to the hospital or at least a pay phone, and I can't fix the thing myself because my left hand is about as useful as my foot. So what we're going to do is we're going to think about what we have to do for each other in order to get what we want, instead of what we have to hold against each other. Which is squat, by the way."

"Unless you count my gun and your memory of my face," he offered.

She grinned. He could shoot her; she could run to the cops and the forensic artists and whoever else she wanted to blab about him to. Finally, he was getting the hang of things.

"Bingo," she drawled. "So, again with those in mind, we're going to have to just fix this crap up — " she gestured to her shoulder wound and the whole mess of numbing cream, which was spread so thickly that she probably wouldn't have been able to feel a thing even if he sawed off her arm " — and wait out the night, 'least until Pastor David comes back tomorrow morning to get ready for Saturday service. And you're not going to do anything to harm me, and I won't do anything to harm you."

"So we have to trust each other," he summarized, the inflection in his voice bringing it out more as a question.

A question she wasn't sure if she wanted to answer.

"I…guess you could put it like that," she shifted positions uncomfortably and slowly began to put the cap back on the numbing cream. She honestly couldn't feel the right side of her body anymore and turning her neck to the right felt weird. Maybe she _had _overdone it a bit.

"I mean," stammering to explain, "it's not really _trust, _more like…a mutual need and goal that we have to work together to get_. _We don't even _know_ each other; I — I don't even know your name!"

Something flickered across the stranger's face — almost like pain, but not quite. He lowered his head and, hesitantly, nodded.

"You're right," he said quietly. "And I don't know yours."

Reagan set the numbing cream down and reached for the wet washcloth she had sent Stranger to get. Carefully, she dabbed it against and around the wound. Couldn't have it getting infected, or her impromptu surgeon's needle slipping due to excess numbing cream. The prospecting of this creep having to actually _sew her skin shut _still made her squeamish, but she knew that it had to be done. She had to — and here is that word again — _trust _him.

"Yeah." The needles and tweezers she'd already sent him to wash in the bathroom sink (even though the crappy water might've just un-sterilized them even more; oh well, at least she'd made him use the disinfectants that they had found in the medical kit) and so everything was already prepped and ready. "Can you get that blanket over there? Yeah, that red plaid one. Just spread it on the floor, right there."

Without a word he obeyed, though he did glance over at her strangely. "I'm going to have to lie down for you to…yeah," she explained shortly as she stood up from the chair and carefully lowered herself onto the spread blanket. She didn't know why Pastor David had a red plaid blanket in his office, but she was glad for it because she didn't want to have to lie on the concrete floor. "Otherwise I'll be twitching and everything, if I'm sitting up."

He nodded again and knelt, but hesitated. "What…" he tried to say, but he didn't seem to know how to put the question into words and so he didn't.

Reagan thought she got it. "Just get it over with," she said. "It's not hard, just thread the needle and stick it around a couple times so the thread closes up the cut. Don't be afraid to stick the thing deep; don't want to rip right through my skin."

He looked at her, seeming somewhat surprised. "You've done this before?"

"Yeah, tons of times." That was a lie. It was just twice. Maybe three times, if you didn't count the first time when she was eleven and had to be taken to the hospital because she'd messed up.

_That isn't very reassuring, _she told herself.

"Fine," she said. "Gimme the needle. I'll thread it for you, but beyond that I can't do anything. I can't reach the thing to sew it and, again, I'm crap with my left hand."

He gave it to her and she threaded it for him, to her embarrassment dropping it a few times before finishing the task. Then she made him take it and disinfect it again because he had on sterile gloves (now _that _had been kind of funny — watching him try to put the things on over his metal hand) and when he was gone and she was alone, she began to think.

What was she doing here? She felt fine now. Her arm was still bleeding like crazy, yes, but it didn't hurt and she could move. Pastor David didn't have a phone here? Fine. Pretty much every friendly place within a quarter-mile radius (there weren't many that could be considered "friendly" especially at this hour of the night) was closed, but couldn't she just stand up and walk to the nearest phone booth? She instantly caught her own fallacy — first of all she didn't have any money to pay, and second of all this commando-kid, whoever he was, seemed to be really desperately trusting her now that she wouldn't sell him out.

If she called the hospital and they found her with numbing cream all over her wound, they would first want to know what she'd done, where she had gotten the cream and how the wound had happened in the first place. Now, Reagan had gotten into quite a few scrapes in her life and knew one thing about doctors — you couldn't lie to them about what punctured your skin, no matter what. She'd heard that her brother's friend's cousin had gotten into a knife fight and told the doctors that his nasty wounds came from when he had accidentally knocked over a paint can and the sharp, jagged lid somehow grazed his leg. Well, he hadn't known that the kitchen knife that he'd been sliced with had just been used to cut up raw steak, and the doctors found out too late that almost undetectable bacteria from the steak had stayed inside his skin. He'd had to get his entire leg removed. Reagan doubted that commando-kid had used his arm to slice meat but still, she'd paid attention at least a little in middle school health class. Germs could be anywhere.

So lying to the doctors was out — not that Reagan had ever been a good liar in the first place. And she definitely couldn't lie about being at church and using the numbing cream from the first-aid kit. Stranger-with-metal-arm seemed to desperately want to trust someone that they, at the very least, would stay with him (what else could it be, really?).

She doubted that he was the good guy in whatever story he'd just run from, but she'd let Pastor David deal with that. For now, she would just have to take it on faith that he wasn't going to kill her or kidnap her or anything — he didn't seem like the type but _still, _anything could happen. He was clearly traumatized to the point where he barely acted _human _anymore, which could be bad for her if he got out of control. However, if he remained as scared and meek as he was now and didn't slip back into trigger-happy wolf mode, she might be able to talk some sense into him.

Yeah right. She'd thought the same thing with Justin, and now look where she was.

Sighing shakily, she reached down and rested her hand on her stomach. _Justin. _It was probably him, now that she thought of it…yes, Justin, or maybe Ray…or could it be _Drew?_ No, no…that had been just once, and too long ago. She could barely remember; now that she thought of it she realized that she'd probably been drunk 90% of those times.

She hated alcohol now. Absolutely hated it.

She tensed up slightly at the sound of a closing door, then reassured herself that it was probably just Stranger coming back. It was, and Reagan relaxed.

"It's about time," she snapped to hide her fear.

He looked at her, eyes flicking momentarily down to her mostly-exposed torso before drawing them away. Despite her position on the ground, Reagan felt the heat rise to her cheeks and, suddenly self-conscious, she pulled her hoodie over herself. At least she'd shaved…

"Well? Let's get this over with." (She ignored the fact that her voice wobbled.)

Without a word, but with quite a bit of hesitation, Stranger exhaled and knelt at her side with the needle and thread. He met her eyes, and seeing fear, Reagan closed hers tight.

"Really," her voice slipped now to a whisper, "please. Just do it fast."

(She didn't realize that her fists were clenched in preparation for the pain until she felt a gloved hand rest over them comfortingly, then pull away.)

Even though it didn't hurt, Reagan still winced when she felt the pressure of a hand holding her shoulder. There was nothing of what should have been the needle's prick and after a minute of still nothing except the pressure of Stranger's hand she cracked open her eyes to see what was going on.

Stranger was, in fact, sewing her wound shut and was actually halfway done — for some reason, she just couldn't feel it. He was bent over her so close that a few inches closer and he'd be able to kiss her — even now, as he moved slightly to get a better view, his long hair brushed her skin. His brow was furrowed in concentration as his fingers (he was using his human ones to hold the needle, for which she was grateful) brought the needle in and out with painstakingly small strokes. He had very long lashes, she noticed. She'd die for those kind of lashes, they didn't even need mascara or anything…oh, and those eyes underneath them, careful, pale, penetrating, intense green-blue eyes, like an arctic ocean…like ice…

"Whoa," she remarked without thinking.

He looked up sharply and suddenly she found herself meeting the eyes straight on, feeling very small and plain underneath their gaze. She looked away.

"Nothing," she said lightly. "Keep sewing."

Again, without a word, he obeyed. It was admittedly kinda creepy, him doing whatever she told him to do…but hey, it was cool. A guy actually doing something nice for her…

Stranger suddenly sat back and reached for the scissors in the first aid kit — to cut the extra thread, maybe? Curious, Reagan craned her neck and looked down as her impromptu doctor deftly knotted the thread and snipped off the excess. The wound was far from invisible, but it was closed and the stitches were nice and neat. Far better than the last few times she'd done it.

"Whoa," she said again. "That's…pretty good. What, were you a doctor or something?"

He'd been putting the scissors to the side and retrieving a fresh bandage, so his face was turned away from her. Still, she clearly saw the confusion flicker in his normally stoic expression and the slight widening of his eyes as he sat back on his heels.

"I…was in the war," he replied shakily. "We learned first aid, I think…"

Those two words hit her hard. "Wait wait wait," it took her a bit of effort to push herself up into a sitting position with just her left hand, but she did sit-ups a lot so sitting up and looking Stranger in the eye wasn't hard, "you _think? _What does that mean, you don't remember?"

He didn't answer, only stared at the floor as if he'd never seen concrete before.

"Wait…" she said again without really even knowing what she was saying, "which war, exactly?"

Sharply he turned his head and looked at her, something like _fear _on his face. "What do you mean…which war?"

Okay…this was getting weird. She exhaled and shook her head with that gesture that's like _I don't know, you're smart enough to figure it out, don't make me do your work for you. _"How many wars do you know that you could've possibly fought in however many years you've been a legal adult? Yeah, like, two. Iraq or Afghanistan, which one was it?"

She hoped he wouldn't pick out the fact that she'd totally gotten that from Sherlock. Instead he got a look of pure terror, which Reagan wasn't sure was better or worse.

"Wh…at?" he stammered. "Iraq and Afghanistan didn't — they didn't, did they — "

Great. Ask a simple question and he goes back to panic-mode. In the back of her mind, she began hoping that it wasn't PTSD or something because otherwise then she'd feel really bad. She decided to be a bit more careful. "They didn't do what?"

His eyes were wide and he wouldn't stop shaking his head. Reagan could almost _see _the gears turning. She saw when they clicked, too — he tensed up and tore off his left glove, letting both of them see the metal fingers underneath. He stared at the glinting metal, as if trying to find who he really was through the distorted reflections.

"Iraq and Afghanistan didn't have anything to do with World War II…"

.

Steve. Steve Rogers.

Steve meant the fall.

Steve meant the war.

Steve meant _1944…_


End file.
